Jonathan Brun

France: A country for old men

Last year I spent eight months in France, primarily in Paris. In 2003, I lived in Marseille and Dunkerque and I have been to France over 26 times. I hold a french passport, a french name, and a french heritage. Perhaps, given all that, I can say a few words on the country of my fathers.

If you would like to skip the rest of the article, my points basically boil down to the following sentence. The country is currently run by old men, for old men – (or by young men who pretend to be old). The smart, young, ambitious frenchmen and women are fleeing the country – to Canada (4,026 in 2006), the US, and elsewhere. Why? In many ways, France is well placed for a young ambitious person; you have access to open european markets, a dynamic immigrant workforce and some of the best infrastructure in the world. Yet, the brain drain is remarkable.

In many ways, the country and its young people have the sense that all has been said. On a number of fronts, the country feels finished. Part of the problem is the centralization of the nation in Paris. Nearly all the top schools and international businesses are based in Paris, the government is highly centralized and if you are not in the capital, you are a nobody. This leads to a major problem: the top tier of French entrepreneurs, businessmen, lawyers and engineers all end up together, in Paris. Living, studying and working in the same place leads to groupthink. Innovation is fundamentally an ability to think differently. Canada has a fairly spread out intellectual basin between Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The United States has various poles of expertise in Boston, New York, Houston, San Francisco and Chicago. In France all of the most ambitious end up in Paris and they all end up alike.

Installing a Bixi platform in Montréal

Paris feels like a museum, the entire city has been developed to the maximum height of six stories, and companies located in Paris dare not leave for fear of losing the top talent or being perceived as inferior to their parisian coutnerparts. If Paris is disregarded, the remainder of the country seems equally developed – all the way down to the residential home and the bike racks. As an example, both Montreal and many French cities offer communal bike systems to their citizens. In Montreal, the bikes sit on mobile platforms that are solar panelled. The platforms can be picked up and moved to different locations with a simple forklift and flatbed truck. In France, the bike racks are cemented into the ground and hard wired to the grid – making it impossible to adjust the distribution according to usage. The French plan for permanence, but the world is moving in the opposite direction – more mobile and distributed. The centralized french model is dead.

A cemented, permanent, velib station

Another example are residential homes in France, they are usually surrounded by a high fence. In North America, most properties flow from one to the other, with no physical barriers in between. In France, everyone seems determined to mark their land and proudly proclaim, “This is mine! Don’t touch”.

To live by what is and was reduces your ability to see what can be, what might be. The French culture is obsessed with its glorious past, the focus must be shifted to the future. Throughout the country, you find monuments to past accomplishments – the renaissance, Napoleon, the Republic, but there are so few monuments to the future. By emphasizing past achievements, the country has developed an air of superiority that prevents the desperately needed change and adaptation to a new global reality. There is no denying the monumental achievements France made, they moved the world forward; but no one can live off the past for long. France’s cultural and economic inheritance is being spent fast.

Their passion with the past leads to reactions that smack more of fear than anything else. At the time of writing, the Assemblé Nationale just passed a law banning burqas in public. The government, all members save one, did this under the pretext of protecting the secular state, increasing social cohesion and ensuring woman are not oppressed by men. The law will affect 2 000 french women and some tourists. Despite the benevolent paternal intentions, it is fundamentally contrary to liberal enlightenment principals and will only further fragment French society. In Turkey, when Ataturk wished to secularize the country, he first passed an outright ban on hijabs – it failed. Instead, he decided to attack the problem indirectly, he obliged all the prostitutes in the country to wear a hijab. All of a sudden, woman removed their headscarfs.

France prides itself on equality and justice, yet it remains a deeply unequal country – only 14.8% of the Assemblée nationale is made up by women (compared with 30% in Quebec, 53% in Rwanda, and 46% in Sweden). The burqa ban is designed to protect women from oppression, yet their own Assemblée nationale, theoretically the bastion of gender equality, fails to represent the population of the country.

France’s love affair with their enlightenment past leads to other bizarre reactions. For the second time, Quick, the French fast food chain, is proposing to convert 20 of its outlets to Halal serving venues. This is to attract business from the very large muslim community. Again, the political establishment, both left and right are crying foul. They claim that it will segregate the society and play to religious extremism. How?

France is paralyzed. With the success of the far-right Front National party in the last regional elections (over 20%), one must start to worry. Studies have shown that minorities are tolerated by most countries, until they reach about 15% of the population. At that point, populist politicians, especially in tough times, start to point the finger at the “different” people, claiming they are stealing jobs and changing the spirit of the nation. France, like many countries, has not come to grips with diversity – they tolerate the immigrants. But, when you tolerate something – you are not accepting it for what it is. Do you tolerate your children? Fundamentally, you cannot both love and tolerate something, and if you do not love your fellow countrymen regardless of faith or skin colour, how can they fully be your countrymen?

Fundamental social reform is desperately needed in France, the french economy is based primarily on three things: the state, large corporations (which are supported by the state), and agriculture. There has been a failure to innovate – not due to a lack of resources, but rather due to a mindset that has infected the country. The current mentality is to secure a government job or get out of there. As an example, France employs half a million more bureaucrats than Germany, despite having a population 20% smaller. When I tell my French family that I am starting a business (two actually), they look at me dumbfounded – like I just told them I converted to Islam.

Just last week, the French took to the streets to protest an increase in the retirement age – from 60 to 62, still amongst the lowest in the world. If people are not prepared to work two more years for a very generous pension, one must wonder how bad their jobs are. The problem is not the amount of time they need to work, but rather the attitude they seem to have towards their work (WSJ Article).

It is sad. France of the 1980s and early 90s was a dynamic and moving place, they built state of the art technology – La Défense, High Speed Trains and led important social movements. In the late 90s, something changed. France went on the defensive; perhaps it was the fall of the soviet empire and the rise in power of the american liberalized economic model. Perhaps it was a change in leadership in France or the rising age of the population. Whatever it was, at some point around 1995 the country changed, or rather, it stopped changing. And that was the beginning of the end.

The fear of change, the paralysis in the face of challenge and a degeneration of political discourse on minorities is becoming tired. France must move beyond beyond 17th century enlightenment, they must embrace the global world and assert their role as democratic and technological leaders. Today, the country holds great potential – a young and energetic immigrant population, a strong infrastructure and world class schools. To unleash that potential, bold steps must be taken. The old guard must be shoved aside, the republic must be rebuilt and the country must undergo a quiet revolution. De Gaulle, came to our nation some years ago and proclaimed, “Vive le Québec libre!”, it is time someone returns the favour and shouts from the Eiffel tower, “Vive la France libre!”

Converting kids from sports to smarts

I just watched the most recent TED talk by Sugata Mitra, a very innovative educator. His talk outlines the different ways he has used technology to successfully educated children around the world. The inspirational talk is well worth 17 minutes of your day; however, one sentence during the talk really stood out for me, “These kids wanted to be football players, but after watching eight TED talks they wanted to be Leonardo daVinci”.

The media children consume today is so full of idolatry for music stars (not really artists), television starts and sports players that it is difficult for children to dream of anything but that. It is absolutely essential that they become more exposed to intellectuals, scientists, engineers, doctors and other people who they can aspire to be like. Just as smoking has disappeared from advertisement, we need to deeply think about what children see everyday. Sweeden has.

Old technology is still amazing

There is a lack of appreciation for old technologies that we use everyday. Two examples are mail and checks. Both systems are incredibly easy to use and arguably far easier than their electronic counter parts (just ask someone over 50).

Imagine this crazy idea: you drop an item in a red box, with a handwritten address and a small fee and it will be reliably delivered nearly anywhere in the world. Yes, email is great, but delivering physical objects around the world in a timely, affordable and reliable fashion is even more impressive. On top of that, it has been argued that the penny post was a major contributor to the industrial revolution.

Checks are a nutty idea too. Take some liquid dye (pen), apply it in a pattern (words) on a piece of paper, and boom, you just transferred money. This is far easier than transferring via Paypal, and there are fewer fees attached.

Too quickly we write off the amazing accomplishments of the past to make way for the shiny new toy that the neighbour just got.

As Kevin Kelly pointed out, old technology rarely dies completely, and there is a reason for that: it usually does what it does really well.

Global warming just isn’t that important

With the hyper-active behaviour surrounding Copenhagen this year, climate-gate, and the failed climate change bills in the US and Australia; it might be time to take some perspective on our situation as a species and global warming as a problem. We are destroying the planet, but not in the way you might think. Global warming is a serious issue that threatens countries and people, but it is a superficial, easy to solve and a fundamentally materialistic problem.

Global warming is caused by the overconsumption of fossil fuels, used for the transportation and production of goods and services. Therefore, the solution is quite simple – reduce our use of fossil fuels. Global warming is a secondary level problem. When you steal an item off a store shelf, you are directly committing an immoral act and harming another person. When you burn a barrel of oil, you are indirectly harming people, but the indirectness reduces the level of immorality you might feel. Global warming is a secondary issue, it is therefore not as significant on the moral scale of crimes.

Global warming and other environmental issues are external to ourselves, while they might affect us and be our fault, they are manifestations of our failure as a society, not the actual problem.

In fact, there are much more pressing issues to solve.  In 2010, there are over 26 million slaves in the world, nine hundred thousand women are raped every year, over six million people are behind bars, and over 200 million children are abused while working every year. To these people, pollution, global warming and other middle class issues could not be more remote. Slavery, inequality, and poverty are fundamental problems of society – pollution is a consequence.  A doctor always strives to treat the source of a sickness, not simply mask the symptoms. We need to attack the root of the problem.

To tackle global warming, we must fist address the underlying issues that plague our society. Not only  is it morally urgent to address human suffering, it is also beneficial to the overall improvement of the environment. Let me be perfectly clear, you cannot put a price on human suffering and life and you can therefore not equate carbon reductions with a child slave. Priorities matter. Therefore, it follows that we should first address the issues with the greatest moral weight and and largest potential dividend.

Some will say that we need to tackle all these items – global warming, women’s rights, slavery, etc. But resources are finite and even more limited is the ability to keep the public engaged on an issue. As an example, contrast the fundraising results during large natural catastrophes such as the Haiti earthquake or Asian Tsunami with the average fundraising efforts. It therefore follows that we should focus on the items that have the largest moral potential first. I cannot conscientiously ask for money for carbon credits when our fellow humans are in such misery. The problems of inequality and injustice go to the root of civilization and the way we treat each other. They are therefore much more difficult to resolve than secondary level issues such as climate change.

Not only are the victims of our crimes within reach of our help, the perpetrators are also  within our sphere of influence. We choose not to act because it is fundamentally a reflection on ourselves. The diamonds on your wife’s hand may be tainted, the clothes on your children may have been made by another child, and your cellphone contains coltan dug by slaves in eastern D.R. Congo whose mothers were likely repeatedly raped. By recognizing the failure of mankind, we inevitably confront our own failure to change.

To truly effect change we must change ourselves, we must ask ourselves, “What am I doing on a daily basis that may be making the world worse, not better”. Find one thing, and change that. Day in and day out, if done on a global scale, we could begin to change things in a fundamental way. It is far too easy to point the finger and say, not my fault!

Pollution is easy to externalize. The poor countries claim the west created the mess, the developed countries point at the coal factories in China, and individuals blame corporations. While we recognize we are all part of the problem, none of us think we are at the root of the problem. By focusing our media attention on global warming, we are actually making ourselves feel better, which is exactly what global warming advocates are doing. Green people, myself included, too often go to bed saying, “Yes, climate change is a big problem, but it is not my problem, I drive a Prius”. Global warming just isn’t that important when placed against other issues. All of these issues are intertwined, but we must focus on those with the largest moral payback and which lie at the root of our ills?

In my opinion, not a penny should be spent on climate change programs while children die of hunger, women are raped and slaves toil away around the world. The money proposed for climate change initiatives could have far more moral impact if it were employed to reduce poverty, improve medicine, increase the equality of women, and strengthen democratic institutions. The problems I propose to address first are so massive it may mean we never solve climate change. But do we deserve to solve environmental problems if we cannot address our most fundamental societal failures?

Written tradition vs. spoken word

Words are not real. In his very interesting take on Canadian history, John Raulston Saul (my review here) proposes that the canadian style of governing is heavily inspired by the Amerindian oral tradition. He claims that Canada stands on three pillars – english, french and amerindian. To support his claim, he cites the Delgamuukw supreme court decision that allowed for the use of oral proof, not just written proof.

The trouble with the written word is that it can be used in so many ways – it can easily be taken out of context and even when it is found inside a larger document, sometimes amongst thousands of pages of context, it can still be taken to mean something entirely different from its original intent.

A fascinating case was the prosecution of a drug dealer in the United States. This drug dealer was engaging in an exchange of drugs for a gun. Under American law, if firearms are “used” in a drug deal, the punishment is far more severe than if no weapons are involved. In this fellow’s case he was sentenced to 30 years of jail because he “used” a firearm in his drug deal. The entire case, and appeals (all the way to the Supreme Court), rested on the meaning of the word “use”. In a 5-3 decision, he was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in jail. This was based on the fact that “use of a firearm” included any use that was material to the drug deal. Of course, the original intent of the law was to punish violent drug deals that used firearms as weapons, but that lack of precision did not withstand the prosecution’s ability to twist the word. The written word, is the written word. This case is well discussed in the Philosophy bites podcast, Stephen Neale on Meaning and Interpretation – Philosophy Bites.

In an oral based society, it is very difficult to take things out of context. History, laws, rules and other cultural institutions are constantly evolving as they pass from one generation to another. However, to pass from one generation to another and to be enforced in the present time, the rules must be agreed to by the parties involved. On the other hand, written text can very easily be manipulated by the next generation or by another party with different interests at heart.

Contrary to the this situation, the actors applying orally transmitted rules and history must agree on its meaning, they cannot simply repeat a written word – because it does not exist. That need for agreement as to the meaning of a rule or tradition forces compromise, understanding and flexibility to the situation at hand. This fundamental difference between the oral and written word lead to very different societies.

Not only does a written tradition allow for manipulation, it removes our responsibility for intelligence and wisdom by falsely claiming that we can write down all the rules needed. Consequently, we have millions of pages of laws on every imaginable subject, yet we far too often fail to apply the true intent of those laws. Despite our attempts to write all possible situations down, and close all loopholes, new circumstances will arise making our previous reflections inadequate. It is a futile attempt to outsource our responsibility for reason and compromise to a document. (see these excellent TED talks on the issue: Barry Swartz on our loss of wisdom,  Philip K. Howard: Four ways to fix a broken legal system).

Canada, having endorsed the validity of the oral tradition in court cases has departed from the European tradition and created an entirely new way of dealing with history, tradition and laws. For that, we should be very grateful.